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Feb 28, 2016

SparkRover is an open source rover powered with Arduino with Bluetooth connectivity so it can be controlled with a smartphone. Its structure and wheels are 3d printed.
It was developed by Instructables user Dominick Lee who described the main areas where this small rover can be used:

The extruder is suspended by rubber bands. These are running around several rolls to increase the length (each around 2m relaxed) to have more or less the same force over the whole vertical range. The extruder is connected with a very short latex tube (around 75mm) to the nozzle. This tube decouples the high frequencies between the nozzle and the extruder.Long story short: I'm printing with no problems with 75m/s and 3mm retraction and still with the same acceleration of 800mm/s². But this was only a short test and I think I can bring it up with a bit optimization.Another advantage is, that it's now easier to build an enclosure and that the printer is much quieter, because the extruder is decoupled.

Here is a video of flying extruder in action. The developer claims that the strange motion is due to Kisslicer and that prints are very good.

Feb 27, 2016

Shree Nayar and Makoto Odamaki, scientists at Columbia University, developed a modular camera system made with 3d printed enclosure named Cambits. Electronics is the main part of technology and 3d printing is just gives the structure and housing. Still, very interesting piece of engineering and research.

There are five different type of Cambits: sensors, light sources, actuators, lenses, and optical attachments. The blocks can easily be assembled to make a variety of cameras with different functionalities such as high dynamic range imaging, panoramic imaging, refocusing, light field imaging, depth imaging using stereo, kaleidoscopic imaging and even microscopy.

Zowi is an open source robot developed by Javier Isabel. It is small, simple and cheap to make so it's ideal for education. Since it uses an Arduino or a simillar controller it is very hackable and programmable.

Andreas Haeuser developed a 3d printable lawn mover. It is controlled by Arduino and looks easy to build on any FDM machine with some electronics knowledge.

Tech specs from the project page:

The 3d printed ardumower works on the same principle as its commercial counterparts, which can be bought for a lot of money at most hardware stores. It drives in the inner space of a “boundary wire fence” (BWF). If it comes close to this it stops, turns and then it goes on mowing your lawn continuously. The ardumower is well tested for a lawn size up to 500m². If your lawn is bigger you need a second battery or you should print a second ardumower.In addition to a 3D printer and the needed filament (ABS and PLA) for printing the parts, only a few tools and resources are needed to build the chassis. These are mainly common hobbyist tools. You do not need a lathe or a milling machine. Every common 3d printer with a build volume of minimum 180mm x 180mm x 60mm (x,y,z) is suitable.The ardumower is driven by two 12V geared motors. The cutting device is made from a 12V DC-motor and a cutter disc with a diameter of 220mm. The power comes from rechargeable 12V NiMH or 11,1V LiPo batteries.

Andrey Rudenko developed his own concrete 3d printer in the garage. It has a gantry motion and extrudes concrete paste combined in the optimal mixture.
In his latest demonstration he printed a 100m2 house in 48 hours. He claims his 3d printed structures are hurricane and tornado resistant due to monolithic design.

PS: I like the technology, but 3d printing is not a solution to housing crisis in my opinion. Houses are cheap to build, what is expensive is land, permissions, architectural work by certified professionals, compliance etc. Houses also became financial instrument and not a physical object person lives in. It is a broad and complex issue.

Taiwanese university launched 3d printed APPL-9C rocket. It is made from modules with many 3d printed subsystems. It should be part of a larger multistage rocket in the future. Looks like many of the parts were done on FDM machines. I always claimed space will be colonized with 3d printers.

The first section of the rocket uses a sugar-based rocket fuel made from sorbitol + KNO3, and its second section features a hybrid rocket motor fueled by Hydroxyl Terminated Polybutadiene HTPB, with nitrous oxide as the oxidant. It accelerates at 15G.

From the source article:

A locally designed, developed and constructed rocket blasted off Jan. 31 in Hsinchu City, signaling Taiwan’s commitment to furthering its space technology capabilities.

Produced by Advanced Rocket Research Center based in National Chiao Tung University, the two-stage APPL-9C reached an altitude of 1 kilometer before deploying three chutes and splashing down in a Hsinchu wetland.

The rocket, made from environmentally friendly materials, measures 2.7 meters in length, 15 centimeters in diameter and weighs 27 kilograms when fully fueled.

Feb 26, 2016

Since I wear eyeglasses since my early childhood, I have broken them may many times. To repair the frame is not easy and replacement is always costly. You can use some superglue or other hacks but it's problematic if the part has shattered in several pieces or you just can't find it.

Matias Mamone published his tutorial on Instructables featuring a easy step-by-step process how to design the broken part and 3d print it to make a solid bridge to fix the frame. Nice! Thank you Matias for this cool tutorial!

Feb 24, 2016

EpicJefferson published a full tutorial on how to make Arduino based 3d drawing pen with 3d printed enclosure. It can sedn data to other software like Processing and uses an external motion tracking system (like Optitrack in the video)

Matt Adareth developed and released his "Dactyl" ergonomic keyboard under CC license. This open source keyboard is described as “parameterized, split-hand, concave, columnar, ergonomic keyboard.”
As you can see it was 3d printed on a SLS machine but it could be probably made using other machines with some adjustments.

You can see a very interesting presentation by Matt about keyboard design and 3d printing at:

Feb 21, 2016

This guy made a very cheap 3d printer enclosure made from cardboard box :-) It probably works and can be used as improvised heat chamber but there could be a slight fire hazard. But if you don't have any money, you will take some risks. I know that for a fact. You could also try using some salvaged drywall or gypsum plates.
Stay safe kids! It's always a good idea to have a fire extinguisher in your house.

If you need a different low cost solution you could try this one with cheap plastic boxes:

Tetrix is a new 3d printer design based on needs of schools to provide simple and affordable teaching tool.

Here is the project description:

The TETRIX 3D-Printer was designed as an educational tool for middle and high school technology students, robotics teams, and adults. The purpose of constructing the printer is to train people's building, tool usage, electronics, CAD, and programming skills with a single project. You also get a 3D-printer once you're done!

The printer design is based on TETRIX parts, which are designed by PITSCO and used in the FIRST Tech Challenge robotics competition. The printer also utilizes elements of various RepRap printer designs, such as the Printrboard control system. The design is completely open-source, so feel free to personalize and alter your printer.

The overall cost of the printer is about $640, and the educational value is priceless! The majority of the cost is attributed to the TETRIX parts, but the high accuracy of the pre-drilled, pre-sized aircraft-grade aluminum saves time and reduces error, which outweighs the price.

Someone has been stealing designs from Thingiverse and selling it on Ebay. Here are two videos describing the situation and how you can protect yourself.

Here is Joel aka. 3D Printing Nerd:

Here is Angus from Maker's Muse. He as a industrial designer and professional with a lot of experience suggest few steps on how to protect yourself including watermarking it and not uploading it at all:

Feb 16, 2016

Alex Czech from Australia developed this small and simple vibrating movement 3d printed robots. They are powered with a simple battery and low cost DC motor that vibrates their "legs" or bristles. They can be used as an easy educational or toy project.

3D printed vibrating bristles

Here is the BugBot buzzing around:

Here are the small plastic critters from the Bashbot series and they are fighting in the arena, There can be only one.

I wonder how would cats react if I let few of those insectoids go freely on the floor ... we will have to see ...

Feb 15, 2016

Team of scientists hacked a Prusa I3 to develop new 3d printing process that uses laser to solidify ultrasound arranged resin fiber particle in a small vat.
A laser diode module was mounted on the print head to cure the resin, with an emitting power of 50 mW. The laser diode was housed in a shroud, and was focused using a single 6 mm diameter lens, with a focal length of 20 mm. The small vat sized at 35mmx35mm was filled with low viscosity photocurable resin (Spot-A LV) and commercially sourced glass microfibres (Lanxess MF7904, length 50 μm, 14 μm). Ultrasonic transducer gives resin floating fiber the shape and laser solidifies it.
It is a new form of stereolithography which could see some upscaling into more capable machines.

Feb 14, 2016

Ourobotics is an Irish company that is developing bioprinters. They published an open source low cost bioprinter based on some standard RepRap parts named Renegade that can be sourced for some 900 USD. I doubt that someone will 3d print a kidney on it in a home workshop but some interesting biohacking project could come up in the future.

Ourobotics also developed high-end bioprinter that can print with 10 materials, has enclosed warm chamber for keeping the cells alive and costs some 12500 Euro.

E3D developed a heated bed that has distributed heated zones so that the heat is distributed evenly to avoid potential warping due to temperature differences. It can reach up to 140 degrees Celsius on 200mm * 300mm print surface. It is very useful if you want to print larger series of multiple parts on entire surface.
It is priced at £45.00.

Andreas Bastian developed this very interesting 3d printer with continuous build belt platform. Since it is a movable belt you could, in theory, print continuous or infinitely big objects. Yes, it is a DIY project and it is in development so the builds are rough but the concept is innovative.
The name "Lum" is a version of the word "loom" as the developer is known for his work in textile-like 3d printed structures.

Here is Lum printing its own print bed! First part of a print platform belt is made on different 3d printer and then finished on Lum.

Lum printer printing continuous non-woven textiles / metafelts:

Build guide can be found at for a lower part of it, further build guides will follow:

Here is an Instructable on how to build a DIY chocolate extruder for Ultimaker original. It is based on 20ml syringe with the inner diameter of 20mm. Syringe is covered with aluminum foil, then Kapton tape. The heater is made of NiCr wire coiled on covered syringe and itself covered with Kapton. To get uniform temperature on the syringe a layer is added of aluminum foil and Kapton outside the heater. Thermistor is NTC 100kOhm .

...and they may have some good points. People from Additivism collective focus on general pollution by plastics and critique of consumerist society with more and more stuff being made that severs no purpose ...

Some interesting bits I found in their presentation:

3D printing + spam + micropayments = tribblesthat you get billed for, as it replicates wildly out of control.

90% of everything is rubbish, and it's all in your spare room – or someone else's spare room, which you're forced to rent through AirBnB.

Linespace is an ingenious device that uses a 3d printing extruder to produce a large tactile interface for the blind. I love this project! This could be extremely useful for the blind people!

Project description:

Linespace is a tactile display system for blind users. The foundation of our system is a large 140x100cm display area, on which the system creates raised tactile lines with the help of a 3D printer. The foot switch allows users to enter text and issue commands by talking to the computer.

We use Linespace to give blind users access to the type of software packages that normally only sighted people can access, namely the type of software that helps them to make sense of complex data. So far, we have created a simple homefinder program, a spreadsheet program that can read and write Microsoft Excel, two simple games, and a simple programming environment.

One might say that Linespace is an interactive "visualization" system for the blind. The key to achieving this is Linespace large display as it allows displaying a lot of contents at once, where smaller display systems need to update screen contents. The use of lines (instead of the more common Braille dots) helps create visualizations.

The vision behind Linespace is to help blind users interact with and make sense of complex spatial data. It thereby intends to pick up the vision behind of Vannevar Bush's memex, Engelbart Online system, and Xerox PARC's personal computer, by investigating how we can recreate this type of interaction for blind users--how to use computers to help people think better.

In the video you see a user using this system to find homes in Berlin:

Feb 7, 2016

SprintRay presented their MoonRay high resolution UV DLP 3D printer. It will be priced at 3499 USD.

Key features:

Custom-built projector for 3D printing fine details: MoonRay’s resin requires UV light for proper curing. Other similar 3D printers use commercial projectors, which produce visible light but not pure UV light. The advantages of the custom UV LED projector in MoonRay are in the resolution and curing process. The MoonRay’s UV projector, RayOne, was custom designed with some special qualities:

Perfect light spectrum: The resin used for 3D printing cures under light with a 405nm wavelength. The custom-built projector hits the proper wavelength consistently across the build platform, which allows you to get real 100-micron resolution.

Runs cool and quiet: Utilizing a UV projector allows the MoonRay to avoid any overheating and makes it much quieter than other 3D printers.

Someone note in the comments that this is a CNC router. So, what is a different between CNC mill and CNC router?

"A CNC router will usually have a large X and Y range and short Z... A router will typically be able to do soft materials like wood, plastic, and maybe aluminum... But overall, it won't have the most rigid structure (like this one which is 3d printed)

A CNC Mill will have a relatively smaller X and Y with a larger Z than a router... A mill will be able to cut hard materials like steel... And thus will have a very rigid structure so that it can accurately cut those materials."
More info at:

Feb 4, 2016

David has developed his own 3d printer with almost all parts that are custom made including electronics and software. Kudos David!

It is wrapped into a nice bubble enclosure:

Short project description:

David tells us how he designed his rPrint 3D printer, the printer for pirates!A university project he has been working on for the last 9 months.Everything is custom, including the world's lightest weight direct drive extruder head, Sarrus linkage build plate, linear rail guides, and his awesome bubble enclosure.Not to mention his own custom controller, gcode interpreter, and highly optimised C++ string libraries.

Very detail video worth watching f you are deep into 3d printeting mechanics and electronics:

Arc Bicycle is made from a metal lattice frame 3D printed with MX3D robotic arm. It looks very cool, both futuristic and organic.

Project description:

A student team from TU Delft in the Netherlands designed and produced a fully functional 3D printed stainless steel bicycle. The students achieved the goal of their three-month project by printing the frame of the with the help of MX3D in Amsterdam. The Arc Bicycle is the first ever 3D printed metal bicycle to be produced using a welding process. For information please contact:

Project Coordinator: J.C.Verlinden@tudelft.nl

Student Team: arcbicycle@gmail.com

MX3D: press@mx3d.com

Here you can see a close-up of frame being 3d printed with metal welding 3d print head attached to industrial grade robotic arm:

Feb 3, 2016

Carlo Franciscone form Novara in Italy developed and published detailed construction guide for this Delta configuration desktop robot with many 3d printed parts. It can be controlled by Android device via Bluetooth interface.

EEZYbotDELTA moving and picking up objects:

This delta robot can be controlled via an Android app:

Full construction manual and all the files needed to 3d print it and make it work can be found at:

Their models are made with the gamer in sight, are fully modulable and are easily printable on any consumer grade 3D printer. The range proposed now allow building a complete fortified city (for 60€ level pledge) like the one in the picture below.